U.S. apple growers will market a smaller-than-average-size crop this year, but pricing the product won’t be easy, and there are penalties for making the wrong choices early in the season. “Don’t lose October,” admonished Steve Lutz, executive vice president of the Nielsen Perishables Group, speaking to attendees at the U.S. Apple Association Outlook and Marketing Conference in Chicago in August. He recalled 2008, when high apple prices in October turned consumers off and distorted the flow of apples well into the spring of 2009. Growers, naturally, want to get as much for their apples as they can, but they don’t […]